Why We Could Never Marry
by Things-One-and-Two
Summary: ...And It's Not Because I don't Love You. RonHermione final battle fiction. Ron reveals to Hermione why they could never get married, only to realize that it was all just a large misunderstanding. Rating for Language and Violence.


**Disclaimer: Everything recognizeable is to JK Rowling. Everything else is to me. Well. Not really, but the plot was my original idea. xD**

**Notes: Finally! A Harry Potter fanfic--I hope you all like my dive back into the world of Harry Potter fanfiction writing. I took a bit of a hiatus to focus on some Pirates of the Caribbean fanfics, so I figured it was about time to get something on here about our favorite wizards, right? This is a Ron/Hermione final battle fanfiction. It does get a bit graphic with the language and violence, so this is kind of a borderline T-M. There--I warned you!**

**This takes place in Ron's POV, so enjoy! D****

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Why We Could Never Marry

**By: MJ**

"**And it's not because I don't Love You"

* * *

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"Harry," the name was said more like a command than anything else. My best friend turned towards me, his jet-black fringe covering up his eyes. He always did have a funny way of hiding how he truly felt. It was almost time for us to touch the portkey and be taken to Hogwarts, and I could tell that I wasn't the only one feeling anxious. "…Whatever happens… happens. Just remember, none of it's your fault." He smiled appreciatively, a shaking hand pushing the hair out of his face so he could smile genuinely.

"Thanks, Ron," he said, his voice quiet and decisive. It had been two days since we had found (and destroyed) the last Horcrux. We were all in our early twenties—it had been four years since our sixth year at Hogwarts.

Shortly after we left, the school was taken over that summer. Fortunately for us, Voldemort hadn't known of the secret passageways (nor of Harry's invisibility cloak), and when we had needed to sneak in to find out information about the Horcruxes, we met with little retaliation on the part of the Death Eaters.

Now we were returning so that the final deed could be done. We had sent a letter to the Order a few weeks before to warn them of our plans, and get a bit of backup. We're only assuming the received it, as we haven't gotten a reply.

I was torn away from my thoughts when I felt a hand squeeze mine. I looked down at my girlfriend—fiancée. Damn, I don't ever think I'll get used to calling her that. My other best friend, Hermione Granger, was standing next to me, her hand holding mine. She was smiling at me with tears welling in her eyes. I was silently cursing:

I _hate_ it when girls cry.

Or when anybody cries, really. It's just an entirely awkward situation to be in—do you hold them? Do you just let them cry? Or do you say something funny and make them laugh? It doesn't help that it's not the same for everyone…

I smiled at her, and she looked away. I removed my hand from hers and enveloped her in a hug. This could be the last time we see each other. This could be the last time I can hold her in my arms like this. This could be the last—

"It's time," Harry said, his voice cracking at the word 'time'. He recovered quickly, and began to count quietly. "One… Two… Three…"

Our hands held onto that tree branch like it was the only thing we had left on this earth.

* * *

Thank God for Remus Lupin.

That's really all I have to say.

When we arrived in Hogsmeade (a ghost town now that Voldemort is it's next door neighbor), we could already hear the shouts, screams, and yells of an ongoing battle. We sprinted from our spot (right outside the Three Broomsticks) and through the gates of the school.

I don't think any of us have ever run so fast in our lives. I never thought something could make a person run so fast.

"Harry, go!" I shouted. He turned to look at Hermione and me. She nodded, and I heard her voice quivering as she yelled:

"We'll be fine!"

We. I liked the sound of that. I liked how she said it. Hell, I liked the way she _looked_ when she said it. He nodded and ran towards the school—where we knew Voldemort would be. I was about to follow him when she grabbed my arm and pulled me back. I turned, and she smiled. An arm reached up and wrapped around my neck, I leaned down and kissed her lips.

Not even my mother's cooking could compare to the taste of Hermione's lips on mine. I have never experienced something so wonderful as the feeling I get when she's kissing me. After a few breathtaking moments, she pulled away, kissing the tip of my nose. I wrinkled it, and she giggled, before a terrified scream broke our concentrations.

"I love you."

"I love you more," I whispered back to her hurried promise. She pushed me towards the gates, and I sighed. "I'll find you when it's over."

"Don't do anything stupid."

I honestly would have laughed, but a green light just missing my shoulder kind of made me forget to do so. I turned and ran into Hogwarts, just as I saw her dart around the lake after the person who had shot the spell.

As soon as I entered those large, magestic doors, I wish I hadn't. Never will I forget the way the entrance hall looked that day. Nor will I forget the countless bodies that were lying there; some still, while others were still moving. Nevertheless, all were being trampled on by the people still fighting. I had never wanted to see Hogwarts in anything but its glory days, and seeing it like this made me want to vomit. I heard a crash from upstairs, and cold, cruel laughter, and it brought me back to my senses.

Harry.

I sighed, and pointed my wand at a Death Eater who was standing in my way. "Petrificus totalus!" I shouted, and I don't know—to this day—if it had been my pure, dumb luck, or just the fact that the person had been so engulfed in battle that he hadn't heard the sound of my voice, but the spell hit him. I didn't think that, at that moment, I had the hatred inside of me to kill. As his tight, rigid body hit the floor with a thud, I took a deep breath, and sprinted towards the staircases. Up the stairs I went, running as fast as my long legs could take me, shooting curses while I did so. I went all the way up towards the Astronomy Tower, where I figured Voldemort and Harry had to be. I was taken aback when there were no voices when I finally reached it. I was about to turn back, and begin my search elsewhere, when I felt a spell whiz right past my ear. I turned on my foot, and looked back to see Draco Malfoy looming over me.

"Blood traitor," he spat, advancing on me slowly. I whipped out my wand and aimed it at him. "What makes you think you'll get out of this alive? We don't take kindly to blood traitors—those who go and shag mudbloods!" He shouted, his silver eyes piercing as he continued to advance. I sent out a silent curse, which he parried quickly with a simple shielding charm.

"Leave Hermione out of this, Draco—just because the only person you could shag was fucking Pansy Parkison doesn't mean the rest of the male species is as hopeless," I said, moving backwards now. He glowered and I knew I had hit a nerve.

"Expelliarmus! Crucio!"  
_Protego!_ I thought quickly, moving my wand, and the spell blocked it, but just barely. As the shielding charm fell, he had shouted the second spell—an Unforgiveable, and an unblockable. I felt it hit me, and then it _really_ hit me. I fell to my knees, but I didn't cry out. I couldn't cry out—I wouldn't dare give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream. My legs felt like jelly as I shook violently under the spell.

"Scream, blood traitor—I want to hear you yell."

"…Fuck…" I managed to mumble, the pain was too horrible for me to finish. Millions of daggers stabbing me at all angles over and over again—I was hot, then I was cold, and back to hot all over again. Then my muscles would twitch and spasm, and just when I thought I was about to go crazy, I finally, finally screamed. I yelled, a horrible shrieking sound. That's when he stopped the spell, a grin on his face like I had given him a million galleons. I rolled on my side and wretched, and that only made him smile larger.

I made to curse him again, but I couldn't find my wand, puzzled, a quirked a brow when I heard something snap. Unwillingly, I looked up to see that Draco had just stomped on my wand. It was funny how something could so quickly spin out of my control. Helplessly, I watched him throw the pieces down the staircase. I made an intelligible moan, but that was all that came out of my mouth.

"You and me are going to have some fun, Weasel-king."

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, sitting back and watching him closely. He bent down and lifted his Death Eater robes (which were two sizes two large). He pulled out a long dagger from his boot and looked at me menacingly. I watched him run his thumb against the blade; I watched his blood drop to the floor. Then… I watched him lick it off of his thumb, and look at me again.

"A lot of fun."

That made my stomach start to churn, and I looked desperately down the steps. Someone would have had to heard me scream—someone should have realized that I'm not down there—I'm not dead on the ground, nor fighting… Someone should be coming any minute now. I turned to look at him again, and he was watching me somewhat amused.

"I've wanted to do this for a long time, Weasel-king," he said, using the nickname he had given me five years ago in our fifth year. I raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing, sliding back just a bit. "I've always wanted to make you suffer… I wanted to make you suffer because… because I was always… jealous of you…" He said, finding it a great time to reveal that little fact to me, for some odd reason. I snorted, rolling my eyes, and that only pissed him off. "Shut up! Do you know what it's like to have a father who hates you, and a mother who doesn't do a damn thing about it? Do you?" He was screaming now—going absolutely bonkers. "He would hit me, you know… Whenever I'd do something stupid—or get a bad grade… then he would tell me that it was for my own good. _'for the good of the family'. _He was full of shit—all he wanted me to do was carry on the bloody family name. Marry a good pureblood girl and have many heirs to the Malfoy dynasty. Dynasty my ass."

He was talking more to himself than me, pacing in such a way that it made me nervous. I gulped, looking around again for any means of escape. "I could have anything I wanted, but what I really wanted, I couldn't have," finally, he turned his attention to me. I had been waiting for this—waiting for what I knew was going to be hell. "I couldn't tell you when my father last told me he loved me. Why? Because I don't remember him _ever_ telling me he did. Ever. I was never happy. I will never be happy—so why should you be happy? You have nothing going for you!" He stopped pacing, and stared at me, slowly advancing towards me, the dagger gleaming. "No money, no grades, no talent—nothing! And you're so fucking happy! You shouldn't be happy—you're a blood traitor. A FUCKING BLOOD TRAITOR. And you get to be happy and I can't? No… No, you won't get to be happy," he grabbed my hand and yanked. It took me off guard because I hadn't thought Draco was that strong. He pulled at my left ring finger, pushing all my other fingers back. "You are going to marry her, aren't you?" I nodded dumbly, not knowing the relevance of the question. "You're going to marry the love of your life, and be happy… Happy. Fucking _happy_." He muttered, pushing the dagger against the skin of my ring finger.

I winced as it cut the skin, causing it to start bleeding. "You'll never be able to marry her. I'll make sure of that," and with no warning whatsoever, he reared back and sliced downwards in one motion. I struggled, but he was still able to overpower me—I was still so weak from that Cruciatus curse. I screamed—it must have echoed off the hallways for decades afterwards—I screamed for so loud and for so long, that the only reason I stopped was because I had no voice to scream anymore. He had cut off my left ring finger—it was lying on the floor a few feet away. My hand burned with such intensity that I've never felt before. Tears were streaming down my face as he let go and I grabbed for my hand, applying pressure to my bleeding wound. And throughout all of this, he just stood there, bloody dagger idle in his hands, staring at me weirdly for a moment.

Then, he laughed. _Laughed_.

"You… you… you bastard!" I managed to scream, my voice hoarse as I gripped my hand. He only continued to laugh hysterically, as if someone had just told him a particularly funny joke.

Footsteps echoed off of the walls.

_Pitter patter._

_Pitter patter._

_Pitter patter._

I was numb to everything else around me, numb to his laughing, numb to the cheering I heard outside. Numb to everything—including the pain in my finger. I didn't bother looking up when Remus Lupin walked into the room and stunned Draco (who, coincidentally, was standing over me with the dagger raised again—after hearing the footsteps, I suppose he panicked and was attempting to kill me). I was numb when I felt him lift me up and carry me down the staircase, and I was numb when he apparated me to St. Mungo's. The only thoughts going through my head were—

_Hermione and I can never marry._

_Never marry._

_Never._

_Marry._

* * *

"Ron… Ron…"

I woke up to find myself in St. Mungo's, three days later. I had falled unconscious after Remus apparated me there, and I didn't wake up for those three days. I had been too weak from the cruciatus curse, and the loss of all that blood didn't help. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I opened them to find Hermione sitting at my bedside. She smiled, and stood, kissing my forehead. I attempted to smile, but upon seeing her, I quickly picked up my left hand and brought it to my eyes, examining it. I bit my lip and let it drop. I felt her hand on my shoulder and I shrugged it away.

My finger was not there anymore.

"Ron, really—it's no big deal--"

"No big deal, Hermione—do realize what this means?"

"It means you were pretty lucky that you just merely lost a finger and you weren't _killed_!" I obviously had said the wrong thing, because now she was _extremely_ angry with me. I looked at her, and frowned as tears began to form in her eyes. I looked down at my feet, and then looked at her, afraid to ask because I saw the apologetic stare she was giving me.

Finally, I grew a pair, and asked, "Who?"

It took her a while to answer, as she had a sudden fascination with a hole in her robes. She bit her quivering lip and looked up at me, the tears falling now. "…Your mum, Ron… She--"

I don't know if she finished her sentence, because I began to sob so horribly loud that I couldn't hear her anymore. My mum—gone, just like that. I felt her hold me, rubbing circles into my back as I cried. I have never cried in my entire life, and here I was—bawling like a baby in the arms of the woman I loved. Well, that was a lie. I cried at Dumbledore's funeral, but those weren't real tears. Not like this... I sniffed, stopping suddenly to look at her.

"Who did it? Who killed her?" She looked even sadder now.

"Lucius Malfoy. He also killed Luna Lovegood before… before I killed him." Her voice had been so eerily quiet that it scared me, and that's when I realized—she was ashamed of what she had done. I held on to her tighter, and whispered in her ear--

"What you did was… was the only thing you could have, Hermione. I mean it—as horrible as it is to kill someone, you had to—there was no other way to go about it." She pulled away and looked at him.

"I'm a murderer. I'm no better than him, I'm--"

"Don't _ever_ say anything like that again, do you hear me?" How could she say something like that? Of course she was better than him! He killed those people just because he felt them as inferior! She killed him because of what he had done—not who he was! "What you did was brave, and admirable. You killed a man because of what he had done, not who he was… Not because you hated him, but because he had hurt you and the people you loved!" I smiled at her, and she gave me a small smile in return. I kissed her, and she kissed me back for a moment before I pulled away.

"Did Harry--?"

"Oh, my goodness, Ron! I forgot all about that!" It amazed me that she could forget something so crucial, but I dismissed it when she shouted, "He did it! Voldemort's no more—we won, Ron! We're safe now… We can get married, and--"

"We could never marry, Hermione," I interrupted her quietly, my eyes moving down to my left hand.

"What?"

"We could never marry, Hermione—and it's not because I don't love you," I said quickly, realizing what she might take my sentence as. I lifted my left hand to show her my lack of a ring finger. "You see?"

To my surprise, she didn't seem at all phased with what I told her—in fact, she seemed rather amused by it. Her eyes twinkled as her face reddened as she tried to keep it in before she finally let it out. I glared at her as she laughed at me—lightly at first before it bubbled into hysterical laughter. I glowered, truly upset that she didn't care.

"This really isn't that funny…"

"Oh, Ron!" She exclaimed, calming herself down long enough to kiss my cheek. "We can still get married! The exchange of rings is just a custom—it's not required! Don't you see? We can still get married… That is, if you still love me…"

I pulled her to me, overjoyed by her announcement, and I planted a kiss to her lips. "I can't believe you had to ask," I whispered into her bushy hair as she lay next to me in my bed.

* * *

"I want to see him, Harry—you can get me access, can't you?"

"Why?" My best mate asked me, nearly a year after he won the final battle. We went to work as aurors together—partners in crime, our chief liked to call us. It seemed that we liked to cause just as much trouble in the office as the people we were hunting did in real life. Except we didn't kill random muggles or maim innocent school children. We just had a knack for practical jokes.

It was late on Friday night, and we were both sitting at our desks, going over paperwork. I had been bothering him for months now—wanting desperately for him to take me to Azkaban to visit Draco Malfoy. I just had to see him—had to show him how wrong he was. I told Harry this, and he sighed.

"We have to go there anyway—I'll figure out a way for you to get to see him when we bring Parker in tomorrow."

"Thanks, Harry—I owe you."

"I know," he said, and I promptly chucked the stress ball Hermione had given me for Christmas at his head.

* * *

I have always hated taking prisoners to Azkaban after trials—because the Dementors don't just effect the prisoners. Memories of Malfoy and I at the final battle replayed over and over in my head as I walked past them, into a small room with a two-way mirror. Harry was right outside incase something horrible happened. I was pretty confident that nothing would, though, as the ferret was strapped into his chair. He glared at me as I entered, and I couldn't help the smile that crossed my face as I sat down across from him.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Weasel?" He said as I began to drum my fingers on the wooden table. I grinned at him and put my left hand on the table as well. It pained me to see the proud smirk on his features again as his eyes went to my lack of a ring finger. I raised my hand off the table, and made a rather rude gesture, before I got up from the table and walked to the door. "That's it, then?" He called, right as I was about to leave. I stopped, but didn't turn around. "You braved the dementors—you came all the way to this godforsaken place to _flip me the bird_?" I turned and grinned at him as he began to laugh.

"No, Malfoy," I said, causing him to shut up quickly, as I showed him my middle finger one more time. "I came to show you my wedding ring."

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